"Where do you get fresh water so near the sea?" Marcus asked.
"The great aqueduct carries fresh water in abundance from the inland mountains," she answered. Marcus made a mental note to inspect this aqueduct.
"And this stable is one of forty-seven?" Norbanus asked. "It's almost as big as the stable of the Great Circus at home."
"One of fifty. Each accommodates one thousand horses, constituting five myriads of cavalry. Of course, there are stables for other beasts as well."
They went back outside and proceeded up a ramp to another broad level. Here the wooden doors were far larger and the Romans wondered at this. Then one of the doors opened and an immense beast ambled out, larger than any animal they had ever seen-gray, huge-eared, with a long nose like a great serpent and fierce white tusks banded with iron and decorated with gilding. The Romans gasped and stared.
"Easy there," Marcus chided. "King Pyrrhus had elephants and our men had no trouble dealing with them." Despite his words Marcus was shaken. It was like seeing creatures from an ancient myth.
"But what marvelous beasts!" Flaccus said. "How many do you have?"
"There are usually twenty in each stable," Zarabel said, as animal after animal followed the first, a man straddling the neck of each, controlling his huge mount with a goad. "As you can see, the number fluctuates." The Romans laughed nervously as a miniature copy of the great animals, no larger than a newborn calf, came out, walking close to its mother's side. To the Roman's great astonishment the elephants were arranged in a line facing them and, at a rider's call, knelt on their forelegs, trunks raised in a salute. Zarabel nodded graciously. "Finely done," she commended.
They were shown accommodations for camels, another exotic beast, commonplace mules and oxen, even great stone barns for sacrificial animals, of which the Carthaginian gods needed great numbers as well as variety. They saw antelopes, apes and ibexes, peacocks and flamingoes, zebras, even crocodiles, all of them destined to bleed and burn on the altars of the Baalim.
After the menagerie, they were finally carried to the top of the wall. It was, as they had been told, wide enough for chariots to race four abreast. As on the lower levels men drilled and the Romans examined them closely. There were men of many nations: Gauls and Iberians, Africans of many types, men armed with bows, spearmen, slingers from the Balearic Islands, Greek mercenaries from a score of cities and islands, Sicilian levies with large shields and short swords, desert men in flowing robes with swords shaped like sickles, men armed with axes and men armed with clubs. It seemed incredible to the Romans that anyone could coordinate such an army. But people who could build such fortifications were probably up to the task.
"May I ask, princess," Marcus said, "where the Carthaginian troops might be?"
"They are quartered elsewhere. Here on the wall the only men of Carthage are the commanding officers. Now I think you would like to inspect the war engines."
"I was wondering about those," he admitted. Above the rampart at the seaward side of the wall towered many intricate devices of wood and metal, each standing upon its own platform. The stone-throwers were easy enough to recognize, but there were others more mysterious: derrick-like devices from which were suspended gigantic logs bristling with spikes, hulking structures that seemed to consist of tanks and spouts, apparently for projecting liquids, even broad, parabolic discs of polished bronze mounted on swivels.
Zarabel pointed at one of the spiky logs. "These are called 'ship-killers,' for obvious reasons. They can be swung out over the walls to drop on any enemy ship that strays too near. The stone-throwers can destroy them from longer range. The fire-projectors can spray burning fluids for great distances."
"What are those?" Marcus asked, pointing at one of the great mirrors. "Are they some sort of signaling devices?"
She smiled. "Those are burning-mirrors. They concentrate the rays of the sun on enemy ships and set them afire." She enjoyed the skeptical expressions of her guests. "It is quite true. I can arrange a demonstration sometime, if you wish."
"I would like to see that very much," Marcus said. He was beginning to get a feeling for these Carthaginians, and he was certain that they had not devised these bizarre machines for themselves. "Where did such things come from?"
"They were first built by Archimedes," she said.
"Archimedes?" Flaccus said. "Do you mean the mathematician of Syracuse?"
"The same," she said. "He cost us terrible losses when we besieged Syracuse a few years after you Romans left Italy. But it takes more than machines to stop the invincible armies of Carthage. King Hiero and his son Gelon were crucified on the walls of Syracuse."
"And did Archimedes likewise end up on the cross?" Marcus asked, repelled. Romans considered crucifixion fit only for rebellious slaves, insurrectionists and the lowest of bandits. Conquered kings were decently strangled in privacy, away from the vulgar gaze.
"No, he was carried away by his students in the confusion of the sack. He ended his days at the Museum in Alexandria, I believe."
The princess saw them to their new home, a virtual palace in Megara, the most fashionable district of the city, surrounded by the mansions of the wealthiest families, many of them belonging to members of the Hundred. At the moment they were in no mood to appreciate the luxuries of the place. As soon as the princess had taken her leave, the uproar began.
Norbanus turned on Marcus, snarling. "A treaty! Where did you get the authority to negotiate a treaty with Carthage? Did the Senate name you Dictator while I was looking the other way?"
"Military alliance with Carthage!" spluttered someone. "You'll be charged with treason for this, Scipio!"
"Oh, calm yourselves," Marcus said. "I never heard such a pack of bleating old women."
"Explain your actions," Norbanus demanded.
"In the first place, you all know perfectly well that nothing I do here will be binding on the Senate. I am perfectly qualified to propose a treaty, which they can accept or repudiate or make changes to as they see fit. Whatever Hamilcar thinks, what we do here will be regarded as nothing but preliminary negotiations by the Senate. But think!" Here he gestured urgently. "We have here an opportunity to seize events and mold them!
"When we undertook this mission, we hoped at best for a reconnaissance of Italy, perhaps a chance to make a rough estimate of Carthaginian strength in the area. Today, we have toured the very walls of Carthage! We can describe them to the Senate in detail! A month ago we would have been mad to hope for such a thing! My friends, I tell you that the gods of Rome sit at our shoulders. We must grasp this opportunity they have given us or we will fail the Republic as it has never been failed before."
"But are the legions to become hired swords for Carthage?" Flaccus said.
"We have done well out of military alliances many times before," Marcus said. "What would our ancestors have given for a chance to quarter a few legions within the walls of Carthage itself?"
"It would be dishonorable to form an alliance in anticipation of such a thing," said Lucius Caesar, a very young scion of a very ancient but obscure patrician family.
Marcus smiled. "I believe the Shofet would soon give us ample excuse to turn on him. Treachery is in his blood, and in the blood of Carthage."
"That may well be true," Flaccus said. "In the time of our first war with Carthage the Hundred, with typical parsimony, tried to weasel out of paying their mercenaries in full. The result was a war that nearly destroyed Carthage and inspired many of the African subject cities to revolt. Hannibal's father was hard pressed to put down the insurrection. It was said that Africa ran short of timber, building all the crosses."